Columbia University’s Computer Science Department has developed an experimental tool called the Columbia Newsblaster that automatically tracks news events. Using “natural-language processing” technology, it summarizes reports from twelve news sources daily, including Reuters, ABCNews.com, CBSNews.com, CNN.com, FOXNews.com, WashingtonPost.com and USATODAY.com — and conveniently offers links to each site’s stories. Yahoo’s Full Coverage still seems more useful, but it’s an intriguing concept and it will be interesting to see how the project develops. Check it out. Is this the future of online news?
